Post 100 & sadness

Well, this was supposed to be a blog banter post, but over the weekend I have had hardware issues.

Essentially my graphics card looks to have gone to the big graphics card maker in the sky. This is a problem (and I havnt' changed my skills in days... Why oh why doesn't CCP allow web based change of characters skills?). It started on Monday with some blue lines over the screen... and now appears to have died completely. I'll be trying another reseat operation tonight, but if it fails, I'll have to order a new part. The computer/card is just over 2 years old, so it just our of warranty...

The issue is being a PCI-X card - I don't have a spare capable of running 2 eve clients simultaneously unfortunately.

So I have 2 choices essentially.

• Buy a new graphics card and hope it fixes issue (comparible card = £200 or about $350).
• Buy a new computer if above fails to work - about £800

As such it leaves me stuffed for FanFest. I can't book it now - and if I had booked I'd have had to cancel as the expense if the new graphics card fails will be too high.

Basically not having a graphics card = no EVE = no computer. I'd prefer a working computer to fanfest. Its just such a hard decision to make.

Normal service will resume tomorrow with fanfest banter and updates on the graphics card fix plan.

The movie I'm in finally gets a premier

Apologies for the non-EVE related meandering, but I was in a movie - Stag Night of the Dead as an extra for approx 8 days of filming in the winter and springtime of 2007/2008 respectively at a disused ex-US airbase in the UK.

The films is finally getting a premiere: http://www.stagnightofthedead.com/blog/stag-night-of-the-dead-screening/

Basically - if anyone ever asks you to be a film extra - do it hands down, even if not paid - some of the folk I've met through SNOTD have been friends since filming. And it was hilarious fun getting to jump around made up as a zombie for days at a time.

Oh for a real sci-fi film wanting extras coinciding with my work holiday!

Now I can't wait for the premiere, so its time to book more work holidays for this.

Not logged on in 1 week

Its sad to say apart from 2 hours of exploration, I've not really logged into EVE this past week. Personal circumstances and all that in the evenings limiting myself to about 1 hour of "spare" personal time a day. Which when its all I have, means I've not had chance to play EVE apart from to switch skills out.

The great news is I should be getting substantial playtime over the summer - just had semi-news in that regard.

I've also spent time playing with Apache/GD/PHP and Mysql to get a personal killboard setup at home. The URL will not be published, apart from for corporation members - and the site will be restricted to only corp I'm afriad. Why a Killboard? Well I am in low-sec now, so if I do end up PVPing I want to keep updated with my losses/gains.

I'll be logging in to place the POS fuel contract this week for sure, and doing a high-sec supply and sales run. I've also gotta do some housekeeping, in that I've got some ships (about 100 mln's worth in raw isk) stuck in a section of space I rarely use now. More concerning is the fact I've got about 100 mill of stuff there which needs the usual hauling back to high-sec.

Weekly update ....

Right now - corp has 450mil in bank, a sizable mineral stash (enough to replenish almost all the millions of stock on the market). Overall good. Downsides are that I'm not planning a trip back to high-sec for a while, meaning the market will kinda have to do without the items supplied by Deafstar Technologies for a while. This is down to the low-sec base now having supplies enough to survive for a while without this.

The POS still needs to be purchased and put up - the good news is I've found the moon for us to use initially.. All the research slots are now freed, allowing a full use of the POS's facilities for corporate use. I need to put a fuel order in with one of the suppliers for around 50-100 mln ISK's worth of POS fuel - ie a few months supply. If anyone is reading this and can supply Gallente tower full fuel mix contact me in game and I'll happily sign a contract - delivery to Stacmon or Oursaulaert (the 2 staging areas used).

Research - Need the relevant skills training up to L4, and the grinding is still needed with the research corporations I am choosing. Datacores are building up at impressive levels from exploration activities, as are invention tools.

On hand personal funds are very low indeed - this is down to having purchased/shipped a bunch of T2 items from high sec to my low-sec base (got around 200 mln of T2 modules sat in hanger to fit to ships as needed). If I got ransomed I'd have to actually get podded vs pay the pirates responsible..... To attempt to rectify this - I've entered the BIG lottery with a few tickets due to the 20 billion jackpot this week. As tickets are 10000 isk each, even a new player should be able to afford a few!

The new patch - as its only really reading as a bugfix patch - I'm not that personally concerned about the impact. I can't wait to get on with playing online this weekend however.....

In combat skills - I'm getting near ready for flying Heavy Assault Cruisers. Next stage after these skills will be to start on some battleship training - buy a HAC or two and fly up to sleeper space to try something new.

Hopefully in the next weeks you'll hear of the 1st POS launch for me - and its success.

I missed the blog banter

Apologies for lack of posting recently - I've been away for a holiday and a wedding and stayed a bit longer than expected.... Then I've been ill (thankfully not of swine flu variety), and not had energy to stay up past 9 at night, and thus have been limited in time available.

This resulted in not having much EVE time - still training is continuing as ever! Congratulations due to CCP on the 300,000 subscriber mark I've been reading today in the other members of the Blog Pack.

Scarily as I've only logged in for very limited period this past 2 weeks, I'm hoping I will get a chance to play tonight, as tomorrow the plan is to see the Star Trek film... and got visitors again this weekend and again for All weekend, so no EVE time :(

Industry wise, I've been keeping an eye via the API, and we have about 400mln in cash reserves available again. Slow and steady growth of monies to the corporation... The next job is getting some tech 2 component blueprints and getting the researched up for Material efficiency - but I think we'll deploy the POS first (even if only a research POS). After all we are now ready for this... Tonight I think I'll spend scanning moons again in another system - right now its 2 systems down - just on offchance I can find a free-ish moon. I can see the entire industry divisions funds being spent on the new setup, but it should save money and time long term in blueprint research and copy wait times..

As I missed the blog banter, I thought I'd pass on links for those who did contribute:

• CrazyKinux’s Musing, EVE Blog Banter #7: Eh, nobody told me you could do this in EVE!
• One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 7 - Expanding My Horizon
• I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #7 - What do you want to do today?
• Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 7: Trinity
• Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #7 - The me I am not
• Morphisat’s Blog, Eve Blog banter #7 - Treading waters unknown
• Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 7 - Roads Not Followed
• A Mule in EvE, DD, defend against a gank & POS gunning
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Choices
• The Ralpha Dogs, Road Not Taken… Or Not
• Melindhra’s Universe, EVE Blog Banter #7 - Where no one has gone before
• Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #7: Possibilities
• EVE Guru, EVE Blog Banter 7
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #7: Stones left unturned
• Flashfresh - The Pirate, EVE Blog Banter #7: This isn’t me…
• Nefchast’s Gaming Blog, CrazyKinux’s EVE Blog Banter #7
• A Merry Life and a Short One, EVE Blog Banter #7: Syphilis Doesn’t Count
• Rip Lacunae, Past & Future (Eve Blog Banter 7)